Northern Madagascar

I'll start by saying I have discovered where the mosquitos live in Madagascar. In the North. Good thing I'm taking those anti-malarial pills every morning. So we have moved on to the next adventure in Madagascar! We left Toliera on October 2, this city is in the Southern region of Madagascar on the Western Coast. We (stupidly) decided to show up to the airport 4 hours early. It's better than being late, but we were so early that they hadn't unlocked the airport yet. Apparently there's only one flight every few days. So we had to wait on the steps outside with all of our baggage. To make up for it when we boarded the plane we were surprised to find that we were flying first class. Don't know how that happened, but it was Nice! (Alex sat next to a nursing mother the whole flight - good times!) When we arrived in Tana our faithful guide Jimmy was there to meet us! We had a lovely homecoming at Karthala guest house and went out to dinner with Jimmy. My favorite part was when Jimmy commented, "Elspeth, do you remember the day you had double lunch?" I do remember that, it was a good day. On the third we left Tana once more, this time to head to the beach. We arrived in Diego Suarez in mid-afternoon. We found a cheap hotel, Fian-tsilaka. We ended up staying there for five days. Everything in town closes between noon and three everyday so it's a good excuse to go back to the hotel and take a nap.

We did this on Monday and Tuesday but by Wednesday we were more than ready for an outing. We hired a guide and quad bike and headed to Ramena to see the three bays. The water was clear and cool and the beaches almost vacant. We saw a sea turtle and some abandoned French canons from an old fort. We also saw two light houses and in the distance to the North we could see the glowing Emerald Sea. The quad was a blast!

The day after our quad tour we took a fishing boat to the Emerald Sea. We were paired with a French couple on their honeymoon. Very sweet and very in love. Thankfully they speak more English than any other French person we've run into so far. He is Pierre, she is Geraldine. Our boatman cooked us fresh fish and crab. We snorkeled on the sea. Lots of brightly colored fish and coral. We had one last day in Diego Suarez before we headed South to Ankify and then Nosy Be. We weren't sure what we wanted to do, but as we walked past the motorbike rental agency there was a little scooter out front calling our name. Ten minutes later it was ours for the day.

I told Alex to maybe ride it around the block before I hopped on behind him. The first thing he did was run it up onto the side walk across the street. The owner looked like he wasn't sure he would get the scooter back in one piece at the end of the day. Everyone else stopped to stare. When Alex got back from his warm up I was a little nervous that we also wouldn't be in one piece by the end of the day. But, what the hell did we come for if not for a little adventure?? On I got and off we went. Turns out Alex is a very good motor bike driver (not as good as me, but I've never driven with someone else on the back so the day was his!) We planned our 20km scoot to Ramena, and the beach! Ten minutes later it started raining. We checked email. We played banana-grams at the hotel. We went to lunch. It stopped raining. We drove 3km. It started raining! We turned back. We checked email. It stopped raining and the sun came out! Off we zoomed to Ramena. We swam and walked along the beach for a few hours and headed back. It turned out to be an awesome afternoon.

Alex says since I told the embarrassing story about him and the motor bike that I have to tell an embarrassing story about myself. I pooped the bed. (Just like my favorite "Always Sunny in Philly" episode). We decided to drop some coin on a nice dinner at this very nice hotel. I ordered poisson - because I am learning French I know that this is fish. No surprises. Wrong! Surprise - I ordered cold fish soup. It was actually pretty good, but it gave me "bad stomach problems" as Jimmy would say.

Finally Saturday arrived with our departure from Diego Suarez. We hired a car to drive us to Ankify with a stop on the way at Red Tsingy, another amazing park.

Red Tsingy is formed by the way the rain and water run off erodes the sand into ridges. It is really quite amazing to see, an impressive natural phenomenon. Really interesting to go there since it was only discovered about 10 years ago and, only made into a national park two years ago.

On the way out we crossed our French honeymooners. This was a quick stop and then several hours in the car headed South West. The road was paved, but cluttered with pot holes. A lot of swerving and quick breaking followed by high speed acceleration. We stayed the night in Ankify at a very nice place called Le Baobab hotel. We were one of two couples, the place was empty. We stayed in the #1 bungalow right on the beach. It was really nice after our drab digs in Diego.

This morning we hopped a speed boat and arrived in Nosy Be. This is the number one tourist destination in Madagascar. It is a small island off the North coast. We will stay two nights in Helle-Ville, the main town off the port. (If you can call 20 square feet of concrete a port.) Our hotel is called Le Plantation. It is very nice and the rooms are open and airy. Helle-Ville is actually one of the nicer towns we've stayed in, though you wouldn't know by the name. It's Sunday so everything once again is closed. Good excuse to sit back and enjoy the cozy bar at the front of the hotel.

Norhtern Madagascar is very beautiful. It looks much different than Central and Western Madagascar where we spent the first part of our trip. The land is covered in green here. One of the main things the locals do is burn the land so that new growth can spring up for the Zebu to eat. As a result the Malagasy have burned 85% of their forests according to two of our guides. We are happy to be in the relaxing portion of our trip here.

Fatselamana to all our friends back home,

El & Al